


Between Head and Hands

by astral_gravy, PeturbingPrism



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Metropolis (1927)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22987462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astral_gravy/pseuds/astral_gravy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeturbingPrism/pseuds/PeturbingPrism
Summary: A Good Omens AU set in Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Freder/Maria (Metropolis)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 15





	1. A Fateful Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> now with bonus illustrations by astral_gravy!

Chapter one: A Fateful Meeting

The organs screeched a hymn-blazed frenzy around the worker's city. The men and women of the human city ceased their toils and trudged away from their stations, exhausted. They knew what that horrible high-pitched whistle meant.

It meant a shift change.

The crowd lumbered away, utterly drained by the machines that they worked, they gave their life to, practically dragging themselves in a sad, shuffling lockstep to the enormous paternoster lift that cycled endlessly between the machines and their humble dwellings beneath.

The humans descended back to their home in the crude elevators, barely more than fenced platforms suspended by wires, looking forward to only two things; sleep, and their children.

In the underground city, children too young to be sent to the machines climbed impossible stairs, led by a thin, handsome man with red hair that burned like the sun they’d never seen.

"Where are we going?" Asked a small girl he carried in his arms.

"I'm taking you to learn about trees," he whispered gently.

"What's a tree?" She asked.

  
  


_As deep as lay the workers' city below the earth, so high above it towered the complex known as the "Club of the - Sons,'' with its lecture halls and - libraries, its theaters and stadiums._

_Fathers, for whom every revolution of a machine wheel meant gold, had created for their sons the miracle of the eternal gardens._

_-Moving title cards, Metropolis 1927_

The fountains stood at the center of an impeccably curated grove, in whose resplendent bowers the noise and grandeur of the city hundreds of floors below could be all but forgotten. Jets of water danced in the sunlight as the Sons of Metropolis played in the garden. They flicked teasing sprays from the foundations at the Daughters of Metropolis gamboling about them, trained from birth to be ornamental and pleasing.

Of all the Sons of Metropolis, Aziraphale shone the brightest, with his platinum-hair, bright smile and carefree blue eyes. He was the ward of the mighty Gabriel, the stony master of Metropolis. The warmth that radiated from him was practically contagious, and completely opposite to his guardian's icy demeanor. He was as sunny as Gabriel was cheerless, as joyful as Gabriel was dour, as feeling as Gabriel was mechanical. 

As Aziraphale splashed about the fountain in his cream colored suit, a bubbling of mirth escaped his chest, filling the air and ringing about the gardens as clear a silver bell. 

Before him was spread a sumptuous picnic lunch like a still-life of indulgence; a square of perfection that nearly outshone the garden- in his opinion.

Luncheon dainties crowded elaborately painted bone china plates rimmed with gold; Finger sandwiches filled with cucumber slices, smoked salmon and roast beef sat next to mouthwatering cakes and delicate biscuits, bowls full of fresh fruits, and an ambrosial trifle graced his tartan blanket. At the Garden's eastern gate hummed a great elevator, the sole point of entry and exit from the gleaming city to the Club of the Sons. So distracted was Aziraphale in his lunch that he didn't notice the hiss of the gigantic doors parting, but the sudden hush that fell over the garden was impossible to miss. He cast a glance over his shoulder, and suddenly his heart had leapt into his throat.

A man of shocking beauty stood before the gilded doors. Tall and lean, a firestorm of red waves framing fine, sharp cheekbones, he was a sight unmatched by any of the children of Metropolis in their finery and elegance-but most striking by far were the man's golden eyes. They caught Aziraphale's gaze and held him rapt, a prisoner of their beauty and intensity. 

A circle of grimy, hollow-cheeked children surrounded the man, clutching at his fingers, holding tight to his dingy worker's garb like a life raft.

The Master of Ceremonies moved his hand to summon guards to remove the motley bunch, but Aziraphale raised his hand and stayed the servant. An eternity passed before the gilt-eyed worker spoke, but all the while his gaze was locked on Aziraphale.

“Look around you, children,” His voice lilted sweetly to the children. “These are your brothers and sisters.” The pale waifs milled around him in awe, but the man's gaze remained locked onto Aziraphale. One child stooped timorously to pluck an apple that had lazily rolled away from his picnic spread, and Aziraphale muttered a silent prayer for forgiveness, he dared not move toward them, but he would give them the whole basket if he couldThe broken silence stirred the crowd in the garden to a babel of disquiet and offense, and soon shadowy guards had hemmed the man and the ragamuffin children into the wall of the elevator bank. The man with crimson hair was standing protectively in front, arms outstretched, eyes darting between his charges and the surly crowd. Finally, the great doors swooshed open, and as he herded the frightened children into the elevator, his eyes flicked a final glance to Aziraphale, just before the doors hissed shut.

The elevator shot down, down, down, far from the dazzling lights and shining edifice of the upper city; plunging deep into the thick, industrial din of the human city many leagues below.

Aziraphale was awestruck. “Who was that man?” he asked the Master of Ceremonies, breathlessly. 

The man shook his head noncommittally. “Someone from the human city, that's all I can tell you. Why not ask your guardian? He has eyes and ears above and below if you're so terribly interested,” he paused, and suddenly fear spread across his face, “ How the hell they got up here is more my concern. I could lose my post over this!” He got on his knees, and begged Aziraphale, “Oh, won't you speak to Gabriel on my behalf? I had no idea how this could have happened! I have a family!”

Aziraphale smiled warmly in an effort to reassure the man, and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “ Of course I will, my dear boy, of course I will. I'll be seeing him later this afternoon-worry not.”

With that, Aziraphale began to collect the remains of his picnic and inspect his pristine suit as the revelers congregated at the elevator door. His blue eyes glittered with wonder as he left the garden, taking his place inside the great East elevator down to the shining city of Metropolis.  
  



	2. The M Machine

Chapter two:   
The M Machine  
  


_Ding!_

A pleasant chime sounded as the elevator landed on the sumptuous rotunda floor of the New Tower of Babel. The partygoers streamed out of the car and onto the brass and marble floor until only Aziraphale remained; A few dewy beads of sweat had begun to form on his furrowed brow. His forefinger brushed idly against the wall of buttons, lingering with a sad finality at the star for ground level. He had never ventured below, he’d never had a _reason_ , but now he felt compelled. A sense of urgency twisted and turned within his breast as he thought of the golden-eyed man.

He stepped out of the elevator with a sigh- it could take him no further. Instead, he walked the circumference of the rotunda and stole through the cloakroom to a faintly marked door tucked out of the sight of regular visitors. The door, made to blend seamlessly with the polished oak panelling, had on it in faded gilt letters: TO MACHINE LEVEL.  
  


Aziraphale lowildly scanned the empty cloakroom, biting his lip in trepidation. Good, no one was watching. As quickly and quietly as he could, slipped behind the door and shut it with a barely audible _click._ He found himself at the top of a dreary concrete stairwell that seemed to go down forever. Motes of dust caught the light of the dingy, single bulb at the landing. He took a deep breath and put his hand on the dirty iron bannister. _Here goes nothing_ , he thought. As he negotiated down the narrow stairs into the inky dark, the air began to boil with the heat, stifling him with hot dust and steam so thick that it sent him into paroxysms of coughing. Doubled over and with eyes watering, He found himself in front of a plain steel door- level V, M-Machine. 

He hadn’t the slightest notion of where to look for the mysterious man; but even though he had been sheltered from the reality of the city below; Aziraphale had decided to search this particular level after managing to steal a glance through some of his guardian’s blueprints. From his chance to appraise the situation, the larger the machines, the more populous the workers, and the better his chances of finding any sort of clue to the identity of the beautiful red haired man.

After a brief altercation with the worn knob, the door creaked open. A blast of steam hit him hard in the face, making his eyes water and burning the back of his throat like coal tar. A faint howling, like a void being opened made breathing almost unbearable. It was as though the breath of the machines, the howling into your chest too.

Air, rammed down to the depths, coming already used from the lungs of the great Metropolis, gushed out of the mouths of pipes. Hurled across the room, it was greedily sucked back by the mouths of pipes on the other side. And its howling light spread a coldness about it which fell into fierce conflict with the sweat-heat of the room.

Gritting his teeth and shielding his face, Aziraphale groped through the haze toward the deafening roars of a huge machine. As he neared the source of the sound, the steam clouds cleared sufficiently for him to finally get his bearings and take in his surroundings. None of his meticulous research could have prepared him for the terrifying panorama that was all around him..

Before him rose a mechanical behemoth, populated by a veritable army of humans, frantically jerking levers every which way as exhaust jets bellowed about them. Heat spat from the walls from which the furnaces roared.The odour of oil,hung in thick layers in the room. Even the wild racing winds bellowed from out of the metal beast were unable to rid the suffocating fumes of oil out from the air. The water which sprayed through the room fought a hopeless battle against the fury of the heat-spitting walls, evaporating, already saturated with oil-fumes, before it could protect the skins of the men in this hell from being roasted.

At the center of the M-machine was a great steam valve, with the size and likeness of a ship’s helm, manned by a sole, exhausted operator, whom Aziraphale noticed to be struggling mightily. Sweat was pouring from his brow, and his sodden hands slipped off the scalding metal spokes.

A grimace of fear contorted the man’s face as his body trembled with the strain.  
With a cry, he wrenched his blistered hand from the metal and looked up helplessly, tears mingling with sweat as the pressure gauge climbed. His battered body had failed him, and thoughts of his family left derelict pained him in equal measure to the hideous burns on his body.

Aziraphale clutched his breast in anguish as he stood helpless to aid the exhausted man as he succumbed, slumping in a heap as the pressure gauge shot into the red. Suddenly, a great explosion ripped through the machine, sending workers flying across the vast room to miserable, scalding deaths. Aziraphale was paralyzed as he watched the foremen carrying bodies away on gurneys, bodies that a moment ago had been toiling away above him. Oh, what of their families? What of the injured? The steam and sickening smell of cooked meat nearly overcame him, and he staggered backward, nearly tripping over a shrouded corpse. 

No one noticed him as he cowered, frozen in fear at the sight of such carnage. Then, almost as quickly as the explosion had occurred, people trickled into the boiling room and pooled at the empty stations, filling them from where their fellows had been thrown to their doom only minutes ago. 

Aziraphale ran., His lungs drowning in the filthy air, and his throat dried up at the horror he’d just seen. He didn’t know how long he ran, or where to in those dark, loud caves full of screaming, foul gods, squatting in their despoiled temples, demanding the lifeblood of workers as their own. He ran, unable to block the sounds, the sights, from his memory. He ran, overwhelmed with the heat and the dark and the dread, the pure, inky dread, that filled his tremulous limbs. His legs barely carried him as he felt his body yield to the solidifying air and the exhaustion and the tiredness.

Suddenly, the air was light, and the sky was a bright, perfect blue, and he was free. He was outside, in the shining, bright streets of Metropolis. 

He wandered down some stairs to a street, legs still unsteady, and shakily hailed a taxi.

As soon as it stopped, he pulled over the door and fell into the back seat, legs shaking, hands balled into white-knuckle fists. His formerly pristine cream suit was damp with perspiration and steam, and his platinum hair streaked with soot. Everything smelt evilly of smoke and cooked meat. “To my Guardian!” he breathlessly urged the driver, blue eyes streaming-”To the New Tower of Babel!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Figured I'd put a note in here that Alex and I have repurposed some dialogue from the book for the sake of homage and authenticity...and the fact that it's just...awesome?  
> So if you've read the book and some bits seem familiar, they're supposed to. :)


	3. The Master

Chapter Three:  
The Master   
  
  
High above, at the very apex of the New Tower of Babel, Gabriel paced the length of his top floor office. As he strode along, he barked orders at nervous secretaries, scribbling frantically in shorthand lest they miss a single word; a trembling, anxious foil to Gabriel's measured pace and stony confidence.

In one corner of the office, from an invisible source the numbers dropped down rhythmically through the cooled air of the room, being collected, as in a water-basin. A petite woman in round glasses darted breathlessly along the length of the falling numbers, hastily scratching them down before they fell and disappeared from sight. She was quite a bit younger than Gabriel's other secretaries, although she shouldered the lion's share of the work. Anathema knew that she had to prove herself, and so never allowed herself to fret outwardly, despite the enormity of her task.

The slam of the office door broke her concentration. Aziraphale, Gabriel's ward, had burst into the office, his face pale as death. Aziraphale remained mute against the door, his chest heaving with pained, heavy breaths, his eyes wide and shrieking of horrors he’d just seen.

Anathema rushed over to him, proffering a handkerchief for his clammy brow.

“You look awful, Aziraphale” she whispered, “What's happened?”

Aziraphale clasped her hand to his chest and let out a quavery breath. “Gabr-” he was silenced by a curtly raised hand.

“Anathema, how are the numbers coming along?” asked Gabriel, his voice dripping with indignation.

“Ah- Oh-” she ran back to her post. “They're all quite in order, sir. I simply wanted-”

“ENOUGH! he growled, before waving her back to her station dismissively, “I will speak to Aziraphale when I am finished.”

The hands of those writing stopped and, for the space of a moment, they sat as though paralyzed, relaxed, exhausted. Then Gabriel’s voice said with a dry gentleness:

"Thank you, to-morrow."

Relieved, the rest of the clerks quickly packed up their supplies, and left. Without looking round, Gabriel asked, :"What do you want, my boy?"

“GABRIEL!” shouted Aziraphale. “A-a-a-an explosion! In the machine room! Oh, How horrible...” He would have swooned at the horrible memory if Anathema hadn’t jumped to steady him.

“Anathema.....” Gabriel's tone was nearly a growl now. “ Why was I informed by my ward, and not by YOU, of this explosion?”

Anathema's own knees grew weak as fear of her master crept through her bones

“Go fetch me the foreman right away.”

Anathema dropped her books rushing out the door, shaken.

Now alone in the office with his Guardian, Aziraphale fell toward Gabriel urgently, grasping at his lapels desperately as he babbled, details of the explosion rushing from his mouth, eyes swimming with tears. As he finally described his escape from the underground city, and his journey to Gabriel’s office, he let go, his hands fisted into his hair in distress.

The violet-eyed man remained stoic as ever. “Aziraphale, what ever brought you to the machine level? Haven't I given you everything you need?” he gestured broadly at the bay window of the office, overlooking the whole of Metropolis.

“To see my brothers and sisters... “ Aziraphale followed breathlessly, choking a sob. “ I wanted to look into the faces of the people whose little children are my brothers...my sisters...”Gabriel's face darkened, and he pivoted away from Aziraphale, who still clutched at his arm. “ Your magnificent city, Gabriel- and you the brain of this city-and all of us in the city's light...” He clutched his guardian's shoulder as they looked out the bay window together, silently. Indeed, the city did gleam brightly beneath them, truly awesome to behold.

“And where” asked Aziraphale “are the people, Gabriel, whose hands built your city?”

Gabriel stood unmoving before the window. “Where they belong.”

Aziraphale was horrified.“Where they belong? In the depths?”

He was answered only with silence and an icy, violet glare.

“ What if one day those in the depths rise up against you?” Aziraphale spat, as Gabriel casually flipped a switch to close the curtain on the huge window, ignoring his questions.

Suddenly, a blinking light appeared on a console behind Gabriel's desk. Another flip of a switch, and the office doors parted for a harried Anathema. She cleared her throat:

“Mr. Shadwell, foreman of the heart machine for you with an important message.” Her voice quaked slightly as she spoke. 

In stormed a rough-looking man. His face was unshaven and pock marked, his body was blackened with machine oil from head to toe. He stomped towards Gabriel’s pristine desk, clouds of dust and dirt misting behind him. He produced two grimy slips of paper from the pocket of his boiler suit, and threw them heavily on the table

“Two more of these, found in the clothing of the men killed in the explosion.” He chewed his lip and wiped his face with a filthy hand.  
“Thank you, Mr. Shadwell.” said Gabriel. “You’re dismissed. Keep me apprised of any more of these….papers that you find.”

  
“Aye, sir.”

As Shadwell departed, Gabriel turned his attention to Anathema, his violet eyes burning a hole in the small woman.

“ How is it that I learned of these from Shadwell, and not you, Anathema?”

  
She stared at him lamely, looking like she might faint from the devastation Gabriel’s censure brought with it. Her eyes were wide with fear, mouth opening and closing but silent with embarrassment and fear.

Gabriel’s violet eyes bore into her soul, as if weighing her heart to decide her fate. The scales tipped. He turned around, and said nonchalantly“ You can collect your remaining wages from G bank when you leave.”

Anathema was horrified. Heart beating in her ears, 

she stumbled out into the hallway, tears pricking at her eyes. Removing her glasses, she wiped her eyes with her sleeve, only to have her glasses clatter out of her hand and down the stairwell to the exit. She stood up, trembling, and fumbled her way down the stairs in a daze. As she rounded the spiral, her boot caught on a step, and her feet gave way-only to be caught by Aziraphale, who had followed her out of the office.  
  


“Anathema, are you quite alright? I’m so sorry-”  
She grabbed him by the lapels like a drowning person grabs jetsam in a storm“Aziraphale, do you know what it means to be dismissed… by HIM? I’m ruined! I have nowhere to go. You- you shouldn’t have caught me…..” she trailed off, grip loosening, falling to her kness   
Aziraphale’s eyes softened as he cupped her chin in his hand, placing her glasses back onto her nose. “My dear, you are brilliant and kind. Won’t you stay with me for now? I’ve plenty of space.”   
Anathema burst into tears again as they walked out and hailed a taxi to Aziraphale’s flat.   
‘Don’t cry, my dear.” he soothed. “This is my address. I’ll meet you back there later tonight.”   
“Where are you going?” She asked. 

Aziraphale’s face flashed with steely resolve. “To see my brothers and sisters.”

Gabriel stood before the great bay window, his hands clasped behind his back as he stared out at the city. The door to his office buzzed. Into the room strode Michael, lean, tall, and with an icy ferocity blazing in their eyes.

Gabriel straightened and faced them. “Michael, I want you to keep me informed of the whereabouts of my ward Aziraphale at all times. Find out what he’s doing in the lower city. Do not fail me.”  
Michael only gave a slow nod, and saw themselves out of the office without a word.


End file.
